


stardust

by sonicSymphony



Series: Particlestuck [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sgrub Session, Grief/Mourning, Hermaphroditic Trolls, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-24
Updated: 2014-03-24
Packaged: 2018-01-16 21:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1362523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sonicSymphony/pseuds/sonicSymphony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She was made of stardust that was snuffed out too soon. He is made of stardust that continues to shine. You guess that makes you a product of space as well, but you don’t deserve it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	stardust

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read _stardust_ before _ashes_ , go ahead; you can piece together what happened last time by clues I leave in this installment.

When you see the old rifle sitting on your lopsided coffee table, you can’t help but pick it up. Since the weight was mostly on one side of the rickety old thing, the table tilts as it’s removed, the shorter leg hitting the cracked linoleum floor with a _thud_. The carrying strap of the gun is black and oily and since the vinyl covering around the edges is flaking, you snap it off, letting it fall onto the wood. Now you can hold the gun without anything getting in the way.

It’s a model you don’t recognize, so you immediately know it’s not Alternian. You know every trollmade gun inside and out—the mechanisms, the schematics, the dimensions—and this one certainly has some interesting features. You find the make scrolled in stunted, boxy lettering on the underside of the stock; you have no idea what it says, so it’s definitely something alien. Perhaps it’s treskian, you know their alphabet is mostly jagged edges and simple points.

You head over to the pantry, digging around until you find the basic tool kit sitting on the top shelf. You wonder who put it up there. Kar is much too short to reach that high spot, and you haven’t touched it since you picked it up the one time Kar dragged you out shopping, so there must be a stepladder hidden somewhere. Heading back into the kitchen and pulling out one of the crappy plastic chairs, you plop down and get to work.

By the smell that emerges when you crack open the power chamber, it’s a carbon-based weapon. You get a knife and some steel wool to scrape out the buildup inside the chamber and barrel, burning the tips of your fingers when you accidentally trigger the blast compartmentalizer. Luckily, you’d already dismantled the firing mechanism, so it just heats up and leaves scorch marks on a section of your table. Definitely a laser weapon, then.

It’s either an antiquated model, or the aliens aren’t caught up to the kinds of tech your species has reached. Never in a billion sweeps would any sane Alternian _ever_ make a laser with carbonate punch. You bet you can strip the power system and rebuild it into something more appealing.

Only once it’s completely taken apart, bits of it scattered on the table, you wonder where it came from. Your mind answers, _Kar_ , of course, because he’s the one living with you and the only troll who could possibly bring in such a thing, but _why_?

A quiet _beep_ sounds in the entryway as a key slips into the door and in comes your matesprit himself, dressed in the anonymous gray jumpsuit of this colony’s workers (the first time you saw him in it, you thought of the loud gray walls of text that used to bombard you on Trollian before his blood color became a symbol of Fef’s ascension). The hivestem you’re in is tiny and contains two rooms—the main one, which you’re in now, has changes in flooring as it transitions from the “hallway” to the “kitchen” to the “lounge” and the “respiteblock”, plus the closed off bathroom—so you see him immediately. He first looks toward the bed, which is still an alien thing to you even though once you started sleeping on it you realized it’s just a plushier version of a concupiscent platform, then to the couch. As his thick eyebrows draw together, you clear your throat, and his eyes dart over to you.

“I hope you weren’t planning on doing anything important with this,” you say awkwardly, gesturing at the pieces of gun strewn in front of you, “because I don’t think you could shoot anything with this right now. If you were… um. Sorry.” Apologizing isn’t something you’re particularly used to doing, but after your fuck ups managed to crescendo to a point where they were impossible to ignore, you decided to make up for lost time by asking for forgiveness on a regular basis.

The corners of his mouth turn up slightly, and the sight makes your bloodpusher stutter in your chest. He doesn’t smile much, and you know you don’t either, but it’s a novelty you’re all too happy to get used to seeing. Karkat looking tender is a sight you love to gaze upon. He walks over and slides into your lap, and you loop your arms around his waist and pillow your cheek against his hair. You don’t have to worry about his horns; they’re too nubby to do any damage.

“Show me what the parts do,” he commands, and you know that really means, _It’s good to see you actually_ doing _something_. You huff out of your nose, trying to make it sound warm, and unwind one of your arms from around him to reach for the pressure canisters.

“It’s not a blaster, like the Crosshairs,” you start, twirling the thin cylinder nimbly in your fingers, “it’s made for sniping…”

He lets you talk and talk, nodding along and pointing at different parts and asking for you to identify them. You speak more than you have in a long time, talking not just about the gun in front of you but comparing it to Alternian models and discussing design theories and historical usages. Eventually he gets off your lap and goes to dig in the refrigerator, finding something to cook for dinner, but he still listens to you talk, pausing your lecture only for a moment to change into something more comfortable.

When dinner is ready, you eat it in the lounge on the couch, since the table in the kitchen is occupied by pieces of weaponry. You turn on the TV and find a sitcom that looks promising, but you can’t understand a word of it. You eat in silence for a while, listening to a stream of chatter in a clipped, consonant-heavy language until Kar snorts and you realize you were so wrapped up in your new project you forgot to ask him how his day went.

Your fins droop a little, and you turn your face towards him. He notices the movement and looks at you, eyebrows raised and mouth moving furiously as he chews. You never thought you’d find someone eating food endearing, but somehow Kar manages to make it charming, albeit ferocious. “So how did your meeting with the avialae representatives go?”

He shrugs a little bit, taking another bite and talking with his mouth full. “No one got skewered with a beak and I didn’t have to break out the sickles, so it was an easy two hundred bucks. If I knew doing this shit paid so well, I would’ve had Vriska drop me off here ages ago.”

The two most prominent species of the colony have one thing in common: they aren’t violent like trolls. They do, however, require muscle sometimes, especially on this asteroid of underhanded trade, so Karkat does individual jobs as a bodyguard or an overseer. You’ll probably end up doing that too, once you can bring yourself to enter the culture of the colony and learn the language. You’re already bilingual—well, you know Alternian and the seadweller dialect that’s spoken with fins—and you’re not particularly excited about learning how to make new noises come out of your mouth.

There are already introductory language books and CDs stacked up next to the couch. Luckily, Fenix 12 is considered part of the Empire on the barest terms, so having things in Alternian is mandatory. Most stores sell it, but Karkat has only found one or two people who speak it.

You snort at his answer, reclining into the couch cushions. “Got a job tomorrow?”

“Yeah, but it’s early enough in the day that you’ll probably be passed out like a drunken slowbeast by the time I leave,” he replies. “Why?”

Nervousness creeps into your stomach, but you bat it back. There’s no reason to be anxious. “I was wondering if you might want to go down to the Stalls with me, so I can get some pieces to repair and modify the rifle.”

“And finally, the elusive Ampora wants to creep out of his cave,” he snarks, one corner of his mouth quirking up. You should be offended, but you know he didn’t mean it in a bad way because of the copious amount of warmth in his gravelly voice. “Yeah, we’ll go. It’ll be good for you to get immersed in the language. Maybe if you’re really nice, someone will teach you some swears.”

Rolling your eyes, you say, “I bet you sought them out and learned them all on day one.”

He hits you with a pillow, and you shove him away, careful not to push too hard. He retaliates by yanking a cushion from the back of the couch, throwing it in the air, and kicking it at your face. It’s a fast, nimble maneuver, but you still hold an arm up and bat it out of the way in time. At some point in your playstrifing, you manage to get your tongue in his mouth, and it’s all over from there. Intimacy like this is new and magnificent and _flushed_ , and as his breath ghosts across your face and your hands stroke his sides and remove his shirt, you wonder how you used to live without it.

Before things can get completely out of control, you pick him up, reveling in the way his thighs automatically clench your hips and his arms wind around your neck. You grab a pail from the shelf beside your bed and put it on the daystand as you flop backwards onto the mattress. You can see Kar’s bulge straining at the front of his pants, thrashing and making the zipper move minutely, and yours begins to uncoil in response. As a shiver of pleasure runs down your spine, you hook your thumbs in the waistband of Kar’s pants and pull.

 

* * *

 

Though you’re on an asteroid of immigrants, there are two main species that dominate the population: the treskians, who are these hairy mammal things that shed all over everything they touch, and the avialae, peckbeasts that have somehow evolved into something that could think. Though myriad groups of sentient beings come through, those two are the ones you see the most. You’ve maybe seen four other trolls besides Kar.

Not that you go outside much.

Fenix 12 is in a very precarious position at the furthest ring of the great Alternian Empire, far away from your home planet and on the opposite side of the galaxy from Her Imperious Condescension’s flagship. The ship came within 50,000 kly of F12 back before Vriska dropped you off, because you were in the galactic neighborhood. Well, that’s a bit misleading; that makes it sound like the empress was looking for _you_. She wanted Fef.

It has taken perigees for you to even _think_ her name without waves of bitterness crashing over you. If you dwell on her for more than a passing thought or memory, you sink into a rather acrimonious mood—as anyone would, when they remembered their murdered moirail—but now you can think, _Fef would like this_ , or, _We once talked about going to see this_ , or something of the like without being overwhelmed by acerbic rage.

A quarter of a sweep isn’t long enough to get over it, but you don’t think you ever will. The spike of grief is something that will erode into a blunter barb as time passes, but it will always be there, nailed into your bloodpusher.

“Hey,” Kar’s voice is sleepy and quiet, and he burrows a bit closer to you, nuzzling your neck. His hair tickles the bob in your throat, and the hot skin of his chest feels wonderful as he presses closer. You feel his legs curl up so he’s formed a little ball against your bad side. The skin is sensitive, as it’s a strange combination of bioflesh and scar tissue, but he’s not pushing hard enough to make it ache. You hope he doesn’t fall asleep like this; he kicks sometimes, and when he’s in this spot, his foot is in a perfect position to collide with your groin. You know this from experience. “What’re you thinking about?” 

You shrug slightly, your hand reaching to weave through his hair. “Ruminating isn’t alwaves a bad thing.” You used to make a big production of how much you hated fish puns back when she was alive, but now they’re all you have left.

He starts purring as your thumb strokes the base of one of his horns, and you let yourself smile slightly. You’re content to just lie there for a while, running your fingers through his hair and across his scalp as his solid form reassures you you’re not alone. Evidently, he doesn’t fall back asleep, because after half an hour of this, his hand moves down to the area you were worried about earlier and starts stroking the edges of your nook.

Later, you’re stretching as you get out of the shower. You used to love baths, but you don’t take many of them anymore, because getting pelted in water is easier than being submerged in it when you’re down half your gills. Whenever you look in the mirror you feel like you’re part of some body horror story; having a set of gills on one side and light, scarred skin on the other is something you’ll never get used to.

Showering, though, does make it so you’re standing more often than you should be. The chunk that was ripped out of you didn’t just take your gills, but part of your hip as well, and that brings you around to one of the reasons you don’t go into public much: the trolls in Vris’ medbay weren’t fibbing when they said some of your injuries would be permanent. You have a limp.

It’d be less pronounced if you used a cane, but what’s more obvious than leaning on some metal stick? You’d rather have an interruption in your gait and soreness when you walk for more than a few minutes than have some sort of signal that you’re fucked up. Kar says you’re being stubborn, and you say it’s not fashionable. Really, it’s just your wounded highblood pride.

Back when everything went down, someone salvaged a few of your outfits from your ruined ship. Now, you pull on the shirt that used to be the tightest on you—a sleek, long-sleeved violet sweater and a black collared shirt that goes under it, the flaps folding over the soft fabric of your blood color near your neck—and it hangs in strange places, showing how much weight you’ve lost. A lot of it was muscle.

Your pants don’t fit quite right either. They no longer hug your legs, and they droop off your waist. Luckily, Kar thought ahead and bought a belt (he wouldn’t dare shop for your actual _clothes_ without you there to critique). It fits on its tightest setting.

You feel bad when you think of all the things Kar’s bought for you just so you’d feel comfortable when you finally decided to get involved with the world again. There’s an array of combs that you never really noticed before on the bathroom counter, and since you doubt he runs a brush through his own mop more than once a week, they have to be for you. There’s a large bottle of styling gel near the sink, and when you squirt some into your hand for a quality check, you can tell it’s the nice stuff. That means you’re not allowed to get mad that he got you gel instead of pomade; you’ll have to deal with it.

Though he did buy you an impressive array of cleaning and styling products, he forgot about a straightener. There is, however, a blow dryer, so you can get your damp hair pretty close to its usual pre-styling arrangement. You try not to use too much gel, and the end product looks pretty damn good, if you say so yourself. In order to complete your “going out in public” look, you etch a very thin trail of eyeliner around each eye, and put some petroleum jelly on your lips, as they’re chapped as hell.

Finally, you equip your new Strife Specibus. You still have riflekind—you’ll _never_ give it up—but seeing as the only gun you have is lying in pieces on the table, you will make due with an extra knifekind Kar picked up. He really does think of you more than he should, and your recent selfish behavior makes your stomach churn. He has reason to be grieving too, and you’ve been so focused on yourself and coping by lying around doing nothing all day while he’s secured money and jobs and connections. Kar’s always been that way, and you’ve always been a stupid sack of shit, so hopefully you haven’t damaged his affection for you.

When you walk into the main room, ready to go, Kar is waiting on the couch. He scoffs a bit when he sees you, not in haughtiness but in nostalgia, his chest moving and lips curving. “You look like an actual _troll_ instead of a vaguely troll-shaped wreck,” he says wryly, getting up.

“I _feel_ better,” you admit, bouncing on the balls of your feet. “Now come on, I have the list of parts I need, let’s go.”

You can tell he’s glad to see you so excited about something. He takes your hand as he locks up your hive and starts tugging you along. F12 is different from Alternia, you’ll give it that—instead of moons, there are other asteroids in the sky at all times, as you’re in a belt of them that circle far away from a red giant. At this time of sweep, there’s a gaseous planet in the sky, bigger than your old moons and far prettier, with its swirling blues and greens. You stare at it more than the landscapes around you as Kar leads you to the Stalls.

Freeloaders that get one little permit to set up near the docks manage these “shops”, so they can ensnare ship captains and crews to buy second-rate supplies and curios. According to Kar, this is where he bought the gun, and he saw plenty of stalls with new and used parts. It makes sense: most people who stop by aren’t treskian or avialae, so they’re violent and need to repair their weapons. You see a few strange species as you browse the stalls: a couple of plump blue-skinned aliens, a pack of lean ones with long snouts like barkbeasts, and one guy you swear is _plant_ -based. They all seem to speak the common language of F12 (or at least, have devices with speakers that help them communicate), and as you gasp out broken sentence fragments and your fins fold with embarrassment, Kar stops you and acts as a translator. It’s pretty damn impressive how much he’s learned in such a short span of time.

As you’re pocketing some circuits so you can convert the power source of your rifle from carbon to electricity, you see him.

He’s three stalls down from you, holding up a standard Fleet pistol, admiring the handiwork even though it’s such a basic weapon. The quills on his head are a replacement for hair, covering his scalp and merging into a thin line that travels down his spine. You know the species and you don’t care who’s watching, you’re going to fucking _gut_ him.

Before you can even pull your knife, Kar is trying to tug you away, hissing, “Dude, what are you _doing_ , I know what murder looks like on you _calm down_ , what the hell—?”

You try to break out of his grip but his hand is like a shackle around your wrist, and he jabs you on your injured side for good measure. Hissing, you let him lead you into an alley, but adrenaline is still roaring in your ears.

“I saw one of _them_ ,” you jeer at him, fins flaring. “You have to let me go.”

“One of _who_?” he demands.

“One of the despicable pungent bastards that slaughtered everyone on my ship.”

He’s surprised, and his grip loosens so you try to rip your hand away, but he tightens his fingers again before you can. You make a distressed noise in your throat, edging it with rage.

“Are you sure?” he says quietly, staring at the ground. When you don’t answer immediately, he presses, “Eridan, _are you sure_ he was one of them?”

“It’s the right species,” you say, but you don’t know if he boarded your ship. “Kar, it’s close enough.”

“Someone being the same kind of fucked up alien as another fucked up alien,” he bites suddenly, eyes moving to capture yours, “is not an excuse for you to stab someone in public. You are _better_ than that.”

“I’m really not,” you say, the prospect of revenge making your tongue feel heavy in your mouth. “Don’t you want vengeance for Ter? For Sol?”

He yanks you closer, so he can grab your other wrist and pull you down so your face is nearly level with his. “That’s not the point. We don’t spill innocent blood, not anymore. So unless you find absolute proof that this is one of the guys, I’m not letting you touch him, okay?”

You snarl at him, but he lets you go, knowing that you’re not going to try anything. Clenching your teeth hard enough that you swear you feel something crack, you take some deep breaths and try to calm down.

When you finally go back out, the man is gone.

The feeling of missed opportunity burns at your insides.

 

* * *

 

 

Old and new pieces of your rifle come together like poetry. You work for two days on it, making sure the new firing systems run perfectly before taking it out into the world.

Kar is overseeing a gunpowder cartel meeting. The fact that any of these people still use _gunpowder_ , of all things, seems archaic. But then again, you just modified a carbon-based laser weapon, so in retrospect, it’s not _that_ bad.

There’s a scrap metal dump about a mile away from the shipyard. You pick up some spray paint at the Stalls so you can make targets before heading over, paying the small toll so you can “take what you please”. The practice space wouldn’t be ideal for a gun that used bullets, but for a focused laser like yours, instead of glancing off the metal paneling, your beam should blast a neat hole right through it.

And it does just that; you calibrated it perfectly. You spend a few hours shooting holes through things and improving your aim, careful not to run into anyone or shoot holes through anything important. For your final shot, you place a small metal can precariously on a large pile of scrap and walk across the entire fenced-in area, climbing atop another piling to take aim and…

You see someone in your scope. You move it back to try to find him… ah, there’s a group of aliens parading through. Mostly treskian and avialae, but there’s a strange-looking one with quills for hair.

As you gaze at him, you realize that he’s definitely not one of the people who raided your ship. He couldn’t be—he was part of a crew made up of just his species, and by the way he’s joking around and talking with this group, he’s part of _this_ crew.

 _He’s not one of the pirates that raided my ship and murdered my moirail,_ you tell yourself.

You pull the trigger anyway and watch in elation through your scope as the alien’s head explodes in a shower of purple blood. You see bits of skull and brain matter splatter the metal near him and his friends are suddenly around him, one grabbing at his shoulders and another reaching for his hand. One of the avialae moves her wings to hug herself and starts crying. You can plainly see the large, clear tears that pour from her eyes and drip down her beak, her expression the epitome of anguish.

Regret never comes.

 

* * *

 

“Sir, that is a _beautiful_ piece of artillery you have there.”

Rustblood. Horns that sweep back from her head like her hair, straight and the tiniest bit hooked on the pointed ends. A strange lit to her words, like an accent formed from disuse. Short and stout, but a couple of inches taller than Kar. It’s kind of nice to see another troll after what you did about an hour ago, but she’s still a land-dwelling lowblood. “It’s not artillery,” you snap, pushing your glasses up the bridge of your nose with your middle finger. “Artillery is big shit like cannons. This is just a gun.”

“Forgive me,” she says, unfazed. “My Alternian is a bit rusty. I’m told you don’t speak the common tongue.”

You huff a bit, fingers drumming on the stock of your gun. You didn’t expect anyone to talk to you, where you’re leaning against a wall in the outskirts of the Stalls, watching people go about their business. “I don’t know who the hell told you that,” you say, lips curling distastefully, “but it’s true.”

“You bought quite a few parts from my employer the other day,” she goes on, hands linking in front of her abdomen. Fef used to do that. “She’d like to see the finished product, and if it’s as impressive as she thought it might be, there’s a job in it for you. Pays well.”

It’s about time you started helping Kar with income, and you’d rather work with at least _one_ troll rather than none. Plus, you like working with weaponry. It’s what you know well.

“What would I be doing?” you ask.

“Building and repairs,” she answers. “If that’s any indication,” she nods towards your gun, “you’d enjoy the work.”

You figure you’ll be able to take both her and her employer in a fight, if it ever came down to it, especially since you’re still coming off your killing high. Speaking of that, this could just be a trap—someone could’ve seen you shoot that quilled monstrosity, and they could be luring you into an arrest. “Fine,” you say, pushing yourself off the wall. If you find Empire officials ready to lead you away, you’ll shoot yourself in the head. “Lead the way.”

She takes you through the Stalls to one of the nicer places. There’s a tent outside with a sturdy steel building behind it, where you’re sure most of her stock resides. The woman at the front of the booth smiles as you approach, revealing mostly blunt teeth with the exception of two fanglike canines near the corners of her lips. She’s treskian, but her hair is much shorter than the others of her species—it’s clipped close to her skin, and you can see some lines of scarring under her fur. She looks at you when she speaks, but the troll who brought you here acts as an interpreter. “Mhar-pha asks if she may hold your gun.”

Gulping and clenching your jaw, you hold it out to her as a gesture of goodwill. She examines it before growling out another sentence. “She says you have much improved the design of her species’ weapon,” the troll translates. “If you come to work for her, she’ll pay you grandly for your knowledge.”

“I’m not used to working _for_ people,” you say, and the rustblood conveys your words. “But I guess I’ll give it a try.”

 

* * *

 

 

As you walk home, you don’t really think about the man you killed. You think about the avialae that wouldn’t stop crying.

You had to deal with tearful people a lot back on Alternia—you culled trolls’ lusii, for crying out loud, you had to get used to devastated people _fast_. There was something about this woman’s reaction, though, that makes uneasiness churn in your gut. Maybe she was one of his quadrants, if these aliens even _did_ those. She could’ve been his moirail.

Closing your eyes, you expel all thoughts of her and the guy you shot from your mind. It doesn’t matter. The deed is done.

“Hey,” Kar greets you as you come in, motioning for you to come over to the couch. You plop down next to him and he curls up against your side, arm wrapping around your waist and legs in your lap. You can already tell exactly what he wants to do tonight, but first you tell him about the people you met and the job offer. As soon as you’re in bed, leaving openmouthed kisses on his throat as his hand starts coaxing your bulge out of its sheath, the guilt hits.

You try to go on, you really do, but your sex drive is shutting down. “Kar,” you sigh as he pushes harder, trying to stimulate you. “Kar, darlin’, stop.”

He pulls away and you flop on top of him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and making sure you don’t put too much of your weight on him. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I… I have to tell you something,” you lament, “even though all I want to do is fuck you until you can’t stand.”

“Go on,” he says hesitantly, fingers playing with the hair on the nape of your neck.

Swallowing, you venture, “Remember that guy that was the same species as the raiders who killed Fef?” He makes a sound of acknowledgement. “I ran into him, when I was trying out my gun. And I killed him.”

His hand freezes on the back of your neck, and suddenly he’s shoving you away. You brace your hands against the mattress and daystand to keep from falling on the floor. “Eridan,” he seethes, glaring at you through narrowed eyes, “I _told_ you—”

“And he wasn’t one of the guys on my ship,” you reveal, though you know that’ll just make it worse. “I knew that before I shot, and I did it anyway.”

“That’s even worse!” he exclaims, his eyes rolling to the ceiling as he snarls a sigh. Sulkily, he tugs his boxers back on.

“I’m trying to be honest with you!” You bunch the sheets over your groin, covering up.

His lips draw back from his teeth and it breaks your heart a little, because he’s _mad_ , and when he’s angry with you, all you want to do is curl up in a ball and sob. “Are you even sorry?”

“I…” You swallow the lump in your throat. “I don’t know.”

“You realize what you did, right?” he questions, and you think he’s trying not to laugh. “You stuttering, hobbling imbecile, you just killed some random guy and created _at least one more of you_.”

Blinking hard, you look down at the sheets. “I don’t follow,” you admit.

He throws his hands up in the air. “You don’t think he had anyone that cared about him?” Kar demands. “I happen to know a vain, vapid assdragon that is constantly moping and depressed because some loser killed _his_ moirail, and right now I’m wondering what the _hell_ he thinks he accomplished by killing someone who could’ve been loved just as much.”

The bawling avialae invades your thoughts yet again. There’s purple blood on the delicate white feathers of her face, and you wonder if there was actually any of it on her or if your mind put it there for fun. _Shut up_ , you want to tell her. _Stop fucking crying_. She can’t hear you, and you’ll never be able to speak to her or confess or apologize.

“Eridan,” he sighs, deflating because he knows he got to you, “you’re never going to get proper closure for Feferi, and that sucks, but you can’t take it out on innocents. What you did was unnecessary and disgusting and I really wish you didn’t do it, but… you did. And you’ll never do it again.” You finally look up to meet his gaze, and his expression is hard. The red rings around his pupils make his eyes all the more intense and menacing. You pity him, because he just made the choice between you and his morals, and he chose you. By the look on his face, it’ll be the only time he ever does.

Something tells you not to fuck it up.

 

* * *

 

In about half a sweep, you don’t work for Mhar-pha anymore, though you still consider her a friend. You have your own gun shop.

You custom build and repair and enhance. You feel like you’ve become an NPC of some video game that characters come to in order to upgrade their weapons and spend their gold. You’ve risen in popularity fast, and you enjoy what you do.

The model people buy the most is not one of your most powerful. It’s a stunning unit that you came up with the design for yourself—it’s a sleek gray pistol with a slightly pink glint to the metal, and it fires an electrical charge that puts people on the ground long enough to apprehend them with no permanent injuries. Since treskians and avialae are pacifists, they much prefer this kind of weapon to one that kills, but the marauders passing through still buy up your other stock.

“What is the model called?” an avialae asks as she tries to hold the gun in her talons. The name of the gun is carved on the side, and even though you speak the common tongue now, you’ll always do your inscriptions in Alternian.

“ _The Ocean’s Heiress_ ,” you say, smiling slightly. She looks at you kind of weird, since there are no oceans here and the title doesn’t make a lot of sense, but _you_ get it. You think Fef would’ve liked a weapon that encumbered rather than maimed.

After making that sale, you lock everything up for the day, heading home to a hivestem you started renting a perigee or two ago. It’s nicer than the old one—it has actual _rooms_ this time, and a bathtub that you could stretch your legs out in (if you ever _took_ a bath, that is), plus it’s closer to the Stalls and the main port. It’s more comfortable and convenient for you and Karkat both.

 _And more spacious for things like this_ , you add as your tongue plays with the tip of his bulge. You take all of him into your mouth, and the moan that this elicits makes your fins flutter. He strokes your hair and grasps your horns when your teeth scrape a bit too hard. “Eridan,” he moans when he’s at his peak, and you love the way he says your name.

When you’re cuddled up to him in bed, a movie playing faintly in the background, you let your mind wander. As usual, your thoughts turn to Fef, and as you run your fingers through Kar’s hair, you wonder what she would think of this. She’d be happy for you, you think. You’ve finally managed to get some level of control over your life, and you haven’t lied in bed all day and cried over her in…

In a week, you think. You’ll never be rid of the ache, but when Kar is pressed up against you like this, dozing off and face serene, you think it doesn’t hurt as much.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I never thought I'd write anything in this universe again. It'll be a trilogy, I think, and I'm 2200 words into the next one. I guess when you read a lot of erikar, you can't help but write some yourself.


End file.
